A6300 | Sony Finally Announces Followup To Wildly Popular A6000

We’ve heard that a new A6000 series camera was coming so many times now that I’d gotten to the point of, ‘I will believe it when I see it’. Well, today ‘I see it’ as Sony made it official with their a6300 announcement.

The new a6300 features a brand new 24.2MP APS-C Exmor CMOS sensor that should be quite a nice upgrade over the sensor in the current A6000. But where the new a6300 really looks to take things to another level is with its new AF system.

The original A6000 was known as one of the top mirrorless cameras in regards to focusing, both speed and accuracy. The a6300 looks to try and keep that tradition going with the inclusion of an advanced 4D Focus AF system that features 7.5 times the AF point density as the original A6000. Sony boasts that this new system can track subjects that other cameras can’t, and can lock onto subjects in as fast as 0.05 seconds.

Design-wise, Sony looks to have taken a very ‘if It ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach and kept largely the same design as the original A6000. I don’t have a problem with this, as I can’t recall having any real problems with the A6000 design as it stands.

As you would expect given Sony’s latest track record, the a6300 also features 4K video recording. The 4K footage is full pixel readout on that 24.2MP sensor, no pixel binning here. As for quality, Sony says the files will be recorded at 100 Mbps in 4K mode, and 50 Mbps in full HD mode.

Pricewise, the new a6300 will come in at $1,000 in the US for the body alone. They will have kits available as well starting around $1150 or so according to the Sony press release. I think that this is a fair price for a camera that is clearly very capable while also maintaining its compact form factor.

Sony says they expect the a6300 to begin shipping sometime in March of this year. Stay tuned and we will get you pre-order links as soon as possible.

Anthony Thurston is a photographer based in the Salem, Oregon area specializing in Boudoir. He recently started a new project, Fiercely Boudoir to help support the growing boudoir community. Find him over on Instagram. You may also connect with him via Email.

I had no doubts that it would feature the latest and greatest AF system, impressive FPS and high-quality 4K video.

To me, the only unknown was, how rugged and robust will it get, versus how lightweight and compact will it stay?

Suffice it to say, it seems like they hit this nail on the head too. I don’t know how “weather sealed” a Sony body is until I see a breakdown of the internal gaskets, like Pentax and Olympus (and Nikon and Canon, for that matter) sometimes show to brag about their flagships.

But in the meantime, I wouldn’t hesitate to take an A6300 out in a storm, either rain or dust or whatever. This could be a pretty awesome camera, especially if the high ISO performance is sufficient for nightscape photography. That’d make it one of the best, most well-rounded action / adventure cameras ever made. Aside from having the same old dinky 1080 mAh battery, of course.

The Meh: Same body + same MP count + same burst rate + same LCD screen

The Surprise: no IBIS? They have the tech and the means to do it, so I’m surprised they didn’t try to implement it here like on all the A7 version II rigs.

I’ve got to say, *for Sony*, who really pushes things and has dominated this segment (features-per-dollar wise), this is honestly a shade underwhelming given everyone’s expectations.

Feels more like a Canon next version (i.e. incremental, intelligent, modest improvements) than a Sony next version. It will sell very well, but it’s not a barn-burner / mic drop of a spec sheet like the A7R II or D500 cameras are.

I don’t know how much IBIS adds to a camera’s price but maybe they couldn’t include it in order to keep the camera around the 1k price point? Although the A7ii is “only” about 700$ more and has IBIS…and is FF…
But you’re right, people were expecting IBIS and they didn’t get it.

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